03.27.10
Chinsuko Food Drops
In buying my stash of Food Drops (only about 7 more to review!) I had a hard time narrowing down my choices. For instance, I only got one sea food type Food Drop even though I had several on my “want” list. Oddly, the same went for cookie flavored Food Drops, which I pared down to Chinsuko. The deciding factor was…well let me quote from J-List and you can see why I’m bringing you these today:
This is a container of candies flavored like Chinsuko, a famous kind of food from Okinawa, which is famous with visitors from mainland Japan because the name looks like chinko (the word for the male member) when written out.
Yes, Junkies, I bought you penis cookies to read about. Not only did I do this but Chinsuko was one of two Food Drops I shipped out to Smith College when we did our Smithee Awards presentation there. Traditionally, the Smithee Awards are all about the odd and slightly off foods and I thought, “Hey, why not send them penis cookie drops?” Besides, it tickled me pink to send a tin of penis cookies to an event hosted by an all woman’s college. Also? Someone came up to me and asked if they could take the tin of Food Drops after the show. I said yes; the tin evaporated before the last echoes of the show even came back to us. Chinsuko indeed.
I confess that I’ve never had Chinsuko cookies so I can not say if these are spot on or not. What they taste like is a sweet shortbread cookies that are ever so slightly darker in flavor than what I expect from a Walker’s or other Western shortbread cookie. The difference might be brown sugar flavor versus a white sugar flavor. I found a site that lists a recipe for making your own Chinsuko and the ingredients are pretty much the same as for shortbread save the sugar. Apparently they have a confectionery sugar in Japan which is similar to brown sugar but not ground as finely.
I have to say, given the look of the Chinsuko cookie on the tin and reading the ingredients, those Mad Japanese Food Scientists have managed another victory for their Food Drop revolution. I’m still more impressed with the Yaki Curry Drops because getting cookie to hard candy right isn’t as impressive as getting curried rice dish to hard candy right. Still, the Food Drop tastes like a shortbread like cookie so hats off to you again, Mad Japanese Food Scientists
Rating of 4 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
Orchid64 said,
April 8, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I reviewed some Chinsukou sugar cookies and there was nothing about a relationship to penises in the ads! Maybe they’re two different things, but I think that the reference to penis as part of this name is incorrect and that these drops and those cookies have nothing to do with male members. “Chin” and “chinsukou” aren’t the same!
Anyway, here was my cookie review in case you’re interested as a point of comparison:
http://japanesesnackreviews.blogspot.com/2008/10/chinsuko-cookies.html
Boo said,
April 8, 2010 at 7:26 pm
My Japanese speaking friends tell me that “Chin-chin” is a colloquial term usually used by little boys to describe their “male member”. It could be a regional thing. I shall mosey over to your cookie review and take a peek.